Sunday, February 10, 2013

CNY 2013

It's been a really lovely day. Chinese New Year feels a lot like Christmas and here are some pictures which illustrate our festive weekend! We are super traditional in our house so this picture heavy post is a fun way to show you what CNY is like for me (I seem to be showing you more and more every year!). Starting with the pretty printed paper above, these were burned first thing this morning as an offering to the Gods. We also stuff envelopes with evergreen leaves and coins and replace last years which are tucked under our bedsheets to bring us luck for the rest of the year.

Of course we decorate the house in red and gold decorations and most of them feature 4 character phrases which all point towards prosperity and good fortune for the rest of the year. We also make sure we have our round candy box filled to the brim with candied fruits. The candied lotus roots, winter melon, coconut and lotus nuts are some of my favourite things!

Above are plenty of red envelopes (laisee) stuffed with money by my mum to hand out to my cousins and below are some little red cupcakes that my little sister baked. The cupcakes are not a CNY tradition, but they were too cute (and yummy) not to include in this post!

My grandma is a real matriarch of the family and she makes tons of food every year to give out to friends and family. The New Year Cake in the previous post was given to lots of friends and family and also the rice crispy cakes seen above! Lilies are a traditional flower to have around the household and my mum made sure we had a lovely fresh bunch sitting on our kitchen table. At my grandmas, sitting in pride of place was an enormous bowl of Mandarin oranges!

On to the food!! According to Chinese tradition, when it comes to big meals, the number should be even. Odd numbers are considered super unlucky so naturally, we had 8 different types of dishes today. Here are a few pictures of all the delicious food, ranging from lobster, suckling pig to steamed sea bass.

As always, my family reunions are are divided into 'adults' and 'children', so the picture above was taken from the 'kids' table which is where I sit! (Here is a link to the Vine Video I made!). We pretty much have the exact same food at Christmas but at CNY, everything has more meaning to it and fish is one of the most important dishes of the meal (in Chinese, it is a homonym for abundance/prosperity). Even though the epic family reunion is over, the CNY Traditions carry on for a few more days. My mum will be making Tong Yuen tomorrow (glutinous rice balls) which I will be looking forward to when I return home from work tomorrow!

If any of you guys are reading and celebrate CNY too, I hope you have had a great day! 新年快樂!

40 comments

Next year, I'm there. In fact I may have to crash one of your regular feasts as I can't wait that long. In comparison I had a cheese toastie today! I didn't make it to Chinatown today but think I may need to organise my own little belated celebration. Lovely photos, you captured everything beautifully!

Happy Chinese New Year Winnie! This post was super interesting to read so thank you for sharing(｡･ω･｡)The food you and your family prepared looks so fresh delicious and made with much love. I wish I could participate in a traditional cny celebration one day!I think it's so cute that you sat at the children's table! At wedding's it's still the same for me as well (;

Happy CNY! :)I really enjoyed this post, it was so interesting hearing about the traditions & of course all the amazing food is really making my mouth water! It looks like you had an amazing time. I love that you sat at the kids table too, it's the same for me at Christmas as well, I'm 24 but I still have to sit at the kids table at my grans! Hah!

ooh I love this post, thanks for sharing - such gorgeous photos! I ate Chinese food yesterday for my own mini celebration, ive always enjoyed Chinese astrology - and I am a snake so maybe it means this is a good year for me? I hope so!xox

I loved reading this post! The food all looks amazing, so different from the greasy rubbish we get from our local Chinese takeaway! ;) The sea bass especially looks incredible. I hope you had a wonderful day celebrating with your family! Happy New Year!